iPhone 5 shuts down with plenty of battery life left

I was having similar early shutdown problems with my ~14 month old iPhone 5 running iOS 7. I did not want to go through a full restore, too much pain, so I went ahead and bought a replacement battery. Installed it myself, took all of about 30 minutes with the right tools, and now I can happily report that the shutdown problems are completely resolved.

When I first got the phone, I was impressed that it could get more than 1 day of regular usage without charging. Before my battery swap, I was getting 6-8 hours before needing to charge. Now it's back to 24 hours or more, and no unexpected shutdowns.

I did not do a software restore or reset of any sort, just the battery swap.

I believe that the full software restore will help a lot of people, because it will lighten the load on the battery and the result will be an improvement, but I still think most of you also have an underlying battery issue. Spring for the $30 battery/tool combo and fix it or pay someone to do it for you.

This happens to me 2 and I have the 4S and have not upgraded to the IOS7... It always shuts down when I am trying to take a photo and the battery says about 30% 35%... I can normally turn in back on about 15 minutes later whithout recharging it....but of course by then the photo opp has gone and I am frustrated! I went to apple care and they said it had something to do with faulty apps I have downloaded .. but that seems to be BS as it obviously has something to do with the camera app. I was thinking of getting a 5S but obvioulsy that will not solve the problem from what I am reading on this page... arhhhhhhhhh!

It sounds to me like you need a new battery. When my battery was having problems, it would often shutdown using the camera because that uses a lot more power than most other things you do on the phone. You can turn it on 15 minutes later because the battery accumulates a little more charge after waiting a bit. Just replace the battery or phone and the problem should be resolved.

Here is how I solved this problem first try.

My phone kept shutting down at 30%. I plug it in and it had 30% left and would charge back up to 100% - turn off at 30%.

When it got to the 30% and turned off, I plugged my phone it to "get it started" again and then immediately unplugged it and let it drain down to 0%. I plugged the phone into a power outlet and let it charge back up to 100% for 4-5 hours (just to be sure).

Today it did not turn off at 30% and infact told me of low power at 20%, but still did not turn off. Seems that the battery is calibrated back to normal.

You actually don't need to do a hard reset and erase all your data and settings on your iPhone-this step is to simply determine if it's a software issue or a problem with the battery. You can skip the hard reset step and just manually install the full 1.3gig downloaded version of iOS 7.0.4 on your iPhone with all your data and settings on it already. This should fix it if it's a software issue and this way you can keep all your data and settings without having to start over again and lose everything.

I have the same issue where my iPhone 5, which is 15 months old, the phone would shut off when I would have 30 to 50 percent. The phone would not turn on until I plug it in to charge. Less than a minute later aft rebooting the phone would show 50 plus percent. The phone would be ok for the rest of day with that 1 minute charge. I have noticed a few times where I would get the popup message stating that my battery is below 20 percent but when I plug it in the phone jumps back up to 50 to 60 percent immediately. I took my phone to the apple store where they ran a test on the battery. I was told that the battery was borderline good. My phone is out of warranty. Since I updated to the os7.03 is when I started to have battery issues. I truly believe this is a os7 issue and not a battery issue. This is my first iPhone and probably be my last if apple does not correct this issue.

I have the iphone 5 (third iphone I've owned) and experiencing the same problems. I've never had such a bad battery. It dies fast and shuts off as early as 43%. I'll only get about 2 hours of usage out of it and then it's toast.

I've brought it into the Apple store and they ran diagnostics and said, nope, it's not bad enough for us to replace it. This infuriates me. It's the worst Apple product I've ever owned. I also don't feel as though I should be on the hook to pay for Apples crappy battery. My brothers Android still had plenty of battery left when my phone was dead...

Unimpressed Apple.

My Iphone 4S battery life is great. Phone operates normally, UNTIL I AM HIKING. I'll text and hike, or listen to music and the battery drains at an alarming rate, then shuts down at between 30-40%. THIS ONLY HAPPENS WHEN I AM HIKING! Add to this, when I'm out hiking with my girlfriend, her 5 shuts down in the same manner. That tells me it's a common defect to do with the conditions that exist when I'm hiking. I've done a factory reset and the issue still exists. Otherwise, phone works great. Just don't depend on it if you are lost in the woods. Judging by common complaints, I'm not the only one with this issue.

OK, there are a couple of things to consider. When you are hiking you are generally further away from cell towers. The result is the signal will be weaker. Look at the signal strength display on the phone and you will probably see one or two bars, instead of the 5 that you would see in an urban setting. When the signal strength is low the phone increases the transmitter power to maintain a connection. One bar requires about 10 times the signal strength as 5 bars (500 mw for 1 bar, 60 mw for 5 bars). So this is going to drain the battery much faster if you are using cellular data or voice (text goes over the voice channel).

Next, if you lose signal entirely the phone keeps trying to re-establish a connection, and it does this by transmitting an "are you there?" message about once a minute, at full power. So having no cellular service paradoxically uses more power than having a signal, even a weak one.

Third, if the weather is cold the capacity of the battery is reduced. Lithium batteries lose 10-20% of their capacity when the temperature approaches freezing. So in cold weather keep your phone in an inside coat pocket.

And finally, to be prepared for emergencies get a backup battery pack that you can use to recharge the phone if needed. There are plenty on the market; I have 3 different ones, a 4,000 mah, a 6,000 mah and a 10,000 mah. As it takes about 2000 mah to fully charge an iPhone from "empty" I can add two more charges with the 4,000, to 5 more charges with the 10,000. this proved quite valuable after hurricane Sandy last year, when we lost power for 10 days. We still had working cell phones.

I have an iPhone 5 purchased when it first launched in 2012. I've been having battery issues for a little while now. I first noticed it when my phone shut off with 20% remaining while I was trying to send a text message. I would try to turn it back on, but it would tell me to charge the phone. As soon as I plugged it in, it immediately jumped to 20%. However, if I waited a few minutes, it would turn on and I could sometimes use it until it got to 1%. Recently, I took a trip and turned the phone off before taking off on my flight. The battery was at around 50-60%. When I landed and turned the phone back on, it was at 20%.

I went to the Apple Store today (Dec 29th) and had them run a diagnostic. They told me it was likely a battery issue. Since I'm the warranty has expired, I have to pay $80 to replace the battery. My problem with this is that I've had the phone for just a little over a year. I don't overuse the phone. I don't play a lot of video or games on it. But, after shelling out $300 for the phone a year ago, I NOW need to shell out another $80 to get it working properly?! That is so frustrating. This is the fourth iPhone I've had, and I've never had the battery go out on me like this. From all that I've read, it sounds like this issue is becoming more common with users. I wish Apple would stand behind their product, admit there's some underlying issue, and replace the battery for free.

Well, I commented earlier in this thread about having this problem. I did a restore from backup...no good. In November, I finally did a complete restore and setup as new. It seemed to improve things for week or so. But then it started shutting down at random percentages less then 50%. I now have a Boostcase and I love it. But I also ordered a battery from iFixit, and I'll be replacing my battery this afternoon. I'll let you know how it goes.

I replaced the battery on my phone 5 thinking this will fix my issue. For about a week I had no issues. Today my phone shut off when it was plugged in!! When trying to power it back on it gave the dead battery indicator. Then 2 seconds later the phone rebooted showing 100%. This happened twice today. When it shut off I was running pandora. The battery is brand new. So far I have not the phone shut off at 50 percent. But it is troubling to me that the phone would shut off for no reason while it was plugged in. I have already done a full re-boot on the phone. I truly believe there is a bug in the os 7. I currently have os 7.4 installed

I have a 4S and it still happens to me. Never before ios 7 update. It sounds like from the posts that Apple's own software update is effecting performance. There is nothing wrong with my battery and won't be bothered to check it at an Apple store. It sounds like Apple can't be asked to deal with the software issue but are happy to rip off customers selling them $80 batteries they don't need.

To be honest I've been iPhone for years. I'm done after this. The quality of the software has just gotten progressively worse. I've done a hard re-set and this calibrating batteries advice seems nonsense to me. The ios update is the root of the battery issue for me.

I did not pay apple 80 dollar rip off to replace the battery instead bought a replacement battery from amazon which cost me 7 dollars and another 6 dollars for the tools. So far I have not had the phone shutting off at 50 percent like it has been but I did encounter the shut off when phone was plugged in with the battery indicator but was able to turn it back on immediately with the battery showing 100 percent. I was able to turn it back on without it plugged into the wall. Both time it shut off the phone was plugged in and the battery was fully charged. I believe their is a glitch in the os7 did not any issues prior to the upgrade. With the new battery the battery indicator is showing correctly and so far the has not shut off when the indicator gets to 9 percent. If your phone is out of warranty you can replace the battery yourself with less than 15 dollars do not take it to the apple store you will get ripped off. There are YouTube videos showing you how to replace it. I hope apple fixes the software glitch soon. This is really annoying,

Thanks I'll take a look at Amazon. This is 100% due to their update. Like you, I had zero issues before i0s 7. Hard reset and 'calibrating' does nothing for me. I'll spend a few hundred and get a Samsung Galaxy before I pay $80 for a new battery due to their own software mess on principal.